More Firms Say Competitors Seek to Hire Away Their Talent

There has been a sharp increase in companies reporting that competitors are trying to recruit their top people, according to a global survey released by Right Management, the talent and career management unit within ManpowerGroup. Nearly two out of three employers now complain that other companies seek to hire away their organization’s leaders compared with just 42% last year.

Participating in the latest Right Management survey were 202 CEOs and senior human resource professionals from six continents. The survey focused on the challenges faced by organizations in recruiting and developing top talent and compared findings with those of last year’s global survey.

Do other companies actively try to recruit your organization’s leaders?

Strongly Agree/Agree

Neither Agree nor Disagree

Strongly Agree/Agree

2012

63%

22%

15%

2011

42%

43%

15%

“Organizations have made strenuous efforts to hold onto their best people,” said Ron Sims, Practice Leader at Right Management. “But the new data tells us that competitive pressures have grown more acute and top talent is being targeted more than before. Many more employers now feel vulnerable to poaching by other companies, a trend identified by CEOs in every region of the world.”

According to Sims, technology plays a key role in driving the trend. “Social media and Internet job boards expose the human resources of every company to outside parties. Researchers find it easy to penetrate today’s organization, acquaint themselves with its structure and identify key contributors. The negative implications for an organization’s bench strength and management succession are plain to see.”

“Certainly poaching from competitors provides multiple benefits of strengthening one’s own bench while weakening the competitor’s leadership pipeline, but remember, it cuts both ways,” observed Sims.

The findings presented are based on an analysis of the Right Management segment of the survey’s global database. The data were collected through a survey of 1,439 CEOs and human resource professionals from 707 organizations. The organizations ranged in size from 500 employees to over 100,000 employees with revenues from less than 25 million to over 10 billion U.S. dollars. The industries represented spanned the public, private and government sectors. Eighty-one percent of the CEOs and 75% of the HR professionals who participated in the study were from North America. The complete white paper can be downloaded at

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